SPEAK OUT

Boris Johnson the Mayor of London carefully cultivates the image of a bumbling oaf just emerging from PG Wodehouse’s Drones club, this is to cover up the fact that he is a rather shrewd political operator. Whilst being aware of his carefully hidden intellect it never occurred to anyone that Boris is actually an expert in theology and comparative religion. Boris is able, from his no doubt in depth understanding of Islam, to assure us that the recent terrorist atrocity in Woolwich was free from the taint of Islam, telling us that “It is completely wrong to blame this killing on the religion of Islam.”

Johnson’s chum David Cameron, that living embodiment of the Peter Principle, assures us that the attack “was also a betrayal of Islam”, and that “there is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.”

However, one of the perpetrators, whom we should assume had a basic knowledge of why he committed this atrocity, justified running over Drummer Lee Rigby, hacking him to death with knives and a machete and attempting to decapitate him, on the authority of the Koran. He said:

‘There are many, many ayah [religious verses]throughout the Koran that says we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today but in our land women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.’

It would seem that at least one the perpetrators thought it had something to do with Islam, even identifying Afghanistan and Iraq as “our land” despite being from south London himself.

From media reaction it is apparent that it is just too difficult to talk of the religious ideology which motivated the murderers. There is a growing narrative within the media and political classes that this was not a terrorist act, instead it is being increasingly viewed as a political act. 

There are a number of reasons for this. There is the laudable wish to protect a small minority in our community from being stigmatised by the actions of a few. Yet the people who would most benefit from an open discussion of Islam and the ways in which it differs from other religions, particularly Christianity, are Muslims themselves. At present it is seen as an unwelcome import shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. Those who would close down discussion of Islam are promoting the very ignorance which breeds intolerance. 

There is simply fear, our social and political elites are not renowned for courage. It is easy to sneer at Christianity and sack Christians who wear artefacts indicating their faith at work, there is little comeback. If Islam is treated differently it is not only down to physical fear, although that exists, it is the greater social fear of being rejected by the herd. If their fellows amongst the elites overheard them making remarks critical of Islam they would be shunned. To be labelled “Islamophobic” is to face social exclusion in our elite circles.

Most importantly there is simply an intellectual and emotional disconnect, our elites just don’t “get” religion. Being devoid of faith themselves it is incomprehensible to them that anyone could have a deep seated religious belief which motivated them to take such an act. 

Religion is a language they don’t speak and they refuse to learn it so that they might understand the natives. They are like the monoglot Brit who demands everyone else speaks English, and when they don’t he just shouts louder in English. Our elites prefer mindless clichés and hackneyed phrases such as; “a religion of peace”, “all religions are the same”, and “refusal to over-react to fundamentalism.” 

If we truly want to assist the overwhelming majority of Muslims who wish to simply get on with their lives, if we truly wish to take the wind out of the sails of those such as the disorganised and frustrated thugs in the English Defence League, if we truly wish for a peaceful and harmonious society, then we have to talk about Islam.

We have to ask if there is an institutionalised radicalism within Islam in the UK of the kind which permits young British men to owe their primary allegiance to “our land” thousands of miles away. Unless we talk about it we will never deal with it. Physicians are accustomed to men, like me, who respond to illness with the mantra, “Ignore it and it’ll go away.” Sometimes those patients die.

A MESS OF POTAGE

Any deliberative body which has been in existence for more than 450 years is bound, however well intentioned, to make a few unfortunate decisions. Unhappily the more it tries to be even-handed and steer a middle course the worse the decisions are likely to be.

Yesterday the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after a six hour debate concerning the ordination of openly homosexual ministers decided by a vote of 340 to 282 to affirm its “current doctrine and practice in relation to human sexuality”, which holds to fidelity within marriage and celibacy outwith marriage. At the same time it also decided to allow individual congregations to opt out of this “current doctrine and practice” and ordain openly homosexual ministers.

Thus the Church of Scotland officially holds that homosexual activity is sinful and that its congregations, if they wish, can ordain open sinners. This supposed “compromise” decision is what can be expected of a church described by one of its own leading theologians as having its lowest level of theological eduction in pew and pulpit since the Reformation.

The present Moderator of the General Assembly has claimed that “This is a massive vote for the peace and unity of the church.” A more realistic interpretation is that it opens the church over the next two years to the most ferocious struggle since 1843.

Due to a procedure called the Barrier Act under which contentious legislation has to be approved by a majority of individual Presbyteries this will not become the official stance of the church until the General Assembly of 2015.

The Barrier Act was conceived as a safety measure to stop any one General Assembly from binding the entire church to major legislation which the church as a whole rejects. This gives those holding traditionalist Christian doctrine two years to organise within Presbyteries and defeat the measure.

Unfortunately two of the denomination’s most influential evangelical congregations have already left. Yes, we will be assured that the Tron, Glasgow and Gilcomston South, Aberdeen are still in existence within the denomination; but their ministers, Kirk Sessions and the vast bulk of the membership have left, only those taking shelter in legalities and stonework can claim they remain. A number of ministers, elders and members have also left as individuals.

At present there are other congregations and members who are considering following them. Previous departures have seriously weakened the traditionalist cause within the denomination, further departures will do nothing but ensure the triumph of Neo-Protestant progressive theology. However, it has to be understood that if traditionalists are to stay in the denomination it has to be to fight. The only reason anyone holding to orthodox Christian theology can remain in the denomination is in order to oppose this legislation.

The Church of Scotland has sold its birthright for a mess of progressive pottage, it is going to be bitter to the taste.

RESTRICTING LANGUAGE

Language is a wonderful construct, especially that Queen of languages, English. It is not for nothing that the greatest contributions to world culture emerging from English speaking nations have been literary. We may not be all that good at splattering paint on canvas or chipping away at marble, which perhaps explains Britart, but we are good with words.

However, as with all good things there is a dark side. Language, a tool for expressing and exchanging ideas can also be used for shutting down thought and speech. This is the particular genius of progressives, they have treated Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as an instruction manual instead of a warning against Stalinist thought control.

Younger readers may find this hard to believe but there was a time when if someone told you that you were a discriminating person you would have been pleased at the compliment. Discrimination meant discernment, the ability to tell the difference between good and bad, helpful and harmful, ugly and beautiful, truth and error. Today it is code for a person who has just crawled out from under a rock where he had gone to adjust his swastika armband.

Discrimination has become as toxic as that other no-no, prejudice. Yet prejudice is a useful attribute which we all employ, it saves not only time but a great deal of aggro. Everyone is prejudiced for the simple reason that prejudging is a socially useful cognitive function. You make observations based on experience and live by them until proven otherwise.

It is prejudice, or prejudging a situation and people, which prevents one from going into certain pubs in the Gallowgate in Glasgow where the patrons are all wearing green scarves and starting to praise Rangers FC. It may just be within the bounds of possibility that the assembled Celtic FC supporters would greet one with bonhomie and joviality and be eager to swap merry quips about the sportsmanlike qualities of those fine upstanding chaps who play in blue. Then again it may not.

For those outwith Scotland, football in Glasgow is inextricably, and often violently, linked with religion. In the illustration above, and its reverse, prejudice is not an example of sectarianism it is an example of common sense, something lacking in progressive circles. Prejudging a situation can be not only useful but necessary.

Likewise judging people, far from being labelled a dangerously harmful attitude was once considered a necessity if you were not going to be ripped off or generally taken advantage of. To lack judgement meant that you couldn’t be trusted to be in charge of a water pistol. Since time immemorial judgement has been seen as the basic building block of wisdom and a signifier of maturity.

Martin Luther King, Jr, famously dreamed of the day when his children would “not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” We focus on the first part of that statement, but the second part is important also: didn’t Dr King have an expectation that we would have standards and that we would judge people by them?

Today judgement is no longer a desirable attribute, rather it is seen as malign. Employing judgement, or being ‘judgemental’ as it is usually termed, is to be avoided wherever possible. Instead we are urged to put judgement aside and be more empathetic. The big drawback with this attitude of never mind the facts feel the emotion is that it leaves us wide open to all those things which might harm us and those whom we love.

Tolerance is seen by progressives as the  mark of the well integrated individual, which is an incredibly dangerous attitude. Blanket, non-judgemental tolerance is harmful to society. Genuine tolerance demands judgement and discrimination because there are things and people of whom we should not be tolerant. Progressives with their blanket tolerance end up with the inanity of demanding tolerance for those who are themselves rabidly and dangerously intolerant. In doing so they end up righteously endorsing sexism, homophobia, inequality and the very intolerance they fear.

What progressives do is take a word with a perfectly good even positive meaning, select a few extreme examples of its dreadful misuse and forever ban use of the word except in a pejorative sense. This restricts not only the use of language but the thought process behind the word. As Wittgenstein told us, “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”

By hijacking these and other words progressives infantalise the rest of us and ensure that we are dependent upon them to tell us what we should think and value. By their manipulation of language progressives have become the arbiters of right and what is wrong. As Joseph Stalin said, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”

As Grain is about to go to Inverness for a few days this will be the last posting for a week or so. Those wishing to condemn me, point out my Neanderthal tendencies, or otherwise blow off steam, please hold your fire until Grain returns.

DANGEROUS DREAMS

Why is it that progressives are so harsh and intolerant? They can’t all have had a sense of humour by-pass, although many do give the impression that they are haunted by the lurking suspicion that someone, somewhere is laughing at a non-PC joke.

Their intolerance lies in the fact that not only do they think that they are good, nice people, but they think that they can remake the rest of us into good, nice people just like them. They believe in the fantasy of the perfectibility of man, and they are just the guys who will make sure we are perfected, whether we like it or not.

Blaise Pascal
“Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast”

Progressives, and others who would lay false claim to the designation liberal, reject Christianity with a self-righteous passion. This is not merely on the grounds of disbelief, otherwise they would just ignore us and let us go our way. Unfortunately for progressives we Christians are the children who cry out that the emperor has no clothes. Christians insist on being down to earth realists and so we continually puncture the balloons of those secularists who spend their energies pursuing comforting dreams and illusions.

The Christian understanding of humanity is that we are all fallen creatures who are yet driven to strive for the unattainable, perfect virtue. When society abandoned this concept we both lost touch with reality and opened the door for the wildest utopian fantasies. Against all the evidence progressives believe that we are perfectible, that given either the right social structures or by rejecting any kind of moral structure humanity will manufacture a utopia where we will all live in a blissful community of peace and plenty.

Christianity has always had its millenarian sects who urged the belief that heaven was just five minutes around the corner. In the days when the church was not afraid to call a heresy by its proper name these groups were invariably rejected and floundered high and dry on the wilder shores of the faith. With the loss of Christian confidence and influence utopian fantasies, both religious and secular, have lost a healthy restraining influence.

 Whatever their ultimate goal utopians inevitably have a totalitarian mindset when it comes to achieving their alternative reality. Fascists believe they can enforce their version of purity, socialists believe they can compel the creation of the brotherhood of man, Islamists think they can bomb their way to heaven on earth, greens think they can bring about harmony between mankind and creation by scaremongering. Coercion is their automatic response to deviation from their worldview, dissent is treason.

Concerned for humanity as a whole progressives have little time for individual human beings. When politically correct totalitarians take children from their grandparents to place them for adoption with homosexual couples, as happened in Edinburgh in 2009, they are doing it for the best of motives. Since progressivism is about creating a perfect society it is obviously virtuous, and to oppose it is therefore equally obviously bad. The grandparents were denied direct access to their grandchildren; for utopians oppression only occurs when it is their utopia which is denied.

The human beings involved don’t really matter as individuals must never stand in the way of social engineering. All that matters is the pursuit of a theoretically perfect future and since that future is perfect the concept can not be altered or challenged. This is why the progressive mind is firmly closed.

Jacques Ellul

We may be amused by the humourless PC brigade and shocked by their abuses of power, but we should be alarmed about where utopian dreams can lead. Jaques Ellul summed up the dangers of utopianism: “I am violently opposed to any utopia because it is the epitome of illusory satisfactions… Utopia is the final blow in humanity’s death. And it is a very concrete death: the last two great utopias were those visions of idealism and the future known as Nazism and Stalinism.”

From the French Revolution on utopian dreamers have unleashed terror. When those pesky Christians showed too great an attachment to their religion the utopian French revolutionaries tried to do away with Christianity, massacring them by the tens of thousand in the Vendee. When the classless utopia did not emerge in the USSR dissidents were murdered by the million and consigned to the gulag. Likewise Mao slaughtered and imprisoned by the tens of millions when his ideal society failed to materialise in communist China. Pol Pot caught the French revolutionary idea of Year Zero and making a fresh start toward building nirvana and made a beginning by slaughtering nigh on 30% of Cambodia’s population including such dangerous ‘intellectuals’ as those who wore glasses.

Christianity understands temporal imperfection and in doing so legitimises the necessity both of a moral code and the understanding of those, all of us, who fail to live up to that code. With the retreat of that revealed moral code we now have to live with the tension created by ignoring the real in pursuit of the dream of the ideal. 

DANGEROUS NON-PROGRESSIVES

Progressive demonisation of any who fail to support their agenda is a commonplace. Unless you sign up to their agenda you are in need of psychiatric intervention to help you with your phobias. As well as despising those opposed to them and labelling them mentally disturbed it becomes increasingly obvious that progressives, despite their supposedly compassionate outlook on life, actually despise the great mass of ordinary folk who have no more pressing concern than going about their daily business.

How Progressives View Ordinary Folk

The initial reaction to the Boston bombing illustrate this. The progressive talking heads initially tried to spin it as a possible domestic terrorist attack. When it became clear that it was yet another jihadist atrocity the progressives altered tack 180 degrees. Suddenly the fear, as illustrated by the repugnant Serota article, was that there would be ravening mobs of uneducated, ignorant, bigoted rednecks rampaging throughout the USA bent on lynching Muslims. 

What actually happened? Not a lot.

The progressive knee jerk reaction is to fear ordinary folk more than terrorists. Merely because the average man or woman in the street does not share the prejudices and preconceptions of the progressive herd he and she are immediately suspect.

Texas is a world of its own, not so much a political entity as a state of mind. It encapsulates just about everything a progressives distrusts; mainly rural, individualists, gun owning, Christian, traditionalist, respectful of the military. To cap it all Texas is the chosen domicile of the much reviled Dubya who, as every progressive knows, is to blame for polarising public opinion about Islam. Yet there are 420,000 Muslims in Texas and in 2011 there were only 6 anti-Muslim hate crimes recorded.

In Britain we find the same progressive distrust of the people they supposedly want to defend. In 2005 Islamic militants exploded bombs on the London underground and buses. As well as the 4 suicide bombers fifty two people going about their daily business without fear were slaughtered by the jihadists. In reaction police, fearful of Islamophobic rampages, were posted outside mosques. Medical staff were instructed to be watchful for expressions of Islamic hatred and report the perpetrators. The state was primed and prepared to pounce on any hint of an anti-Muslim whisper.

What actually happened? Not a lot.

In England and Wales in the year covering the London attack there were 43 religiously aggravated crimes prosecuted, 18 of those were anti-Muslim. Despite the progressive scare-mongering Brits, like Americans, went around on their daily business without giving in to the boiling hatred and xenophobia progressives assume we ordinary folk harbour in our bigoted black hearts. 

What has increased in the UK is the prejudice of anti-Semitism. This is in part, but not only, fed by the anti-Israel stance fashionable amongst progressives today. Figures suggest that anti-Semitism across London is markedly on the rise, a total of 148 incidents were recorded by the Community Security Trust in the first half of 2012, a 48 percent increase when compared to 2011.The CST breakdown of those incidents where the ethnic background of the perpetrators was recorded indicates a totally disproportionate 29% Asian, 13% Arab presence. Who would have thought it?

If there is any prejudice it is the progressive prejudice against ordinary working class white people whom they hold to be hate filled and without moral compass. Progressives hold to an essentially Manichean worldview, in which there are only two sides, the good and the bad. The good can be excused or have a blind eye turned to their wrongdoing, the bad are downright wicked and have no redeeming features. Childish though it is this is a comforting view for those who hold it, it reassures them that they are on the side of the angels.

It should come as no surprise to learn that Calvinists hold to the much more realistic understanding of humankind, total depravity. Not that everyone is utterly depraved and as wicked as they can possibly be, but that we all, even the best of us, are flawed in every aspect of our being. None of us are as good as we can be, or as true as we should be. This leads to a far greater understanding of the frailties of others, even our bitterest opponents, than a progressive can understand. It even holds out hope for progressives.

HATE SPEECH

Reactions to the bombing of the Boston marathon tell us more about the writers than they do about the bombings. From both sides of the Atlantic we have responses which can only be described as repugnant.

Here in Britain it was not unusual to read articles which pointed out that Boston had been a major fund raising centre for the Provisional IRA as they carried out their bombing campaign in the United Kingdom for more than thirty years. More were murdered by the PIRA and their ilk than died in the twin towers. Resentment at the consequences of sentimental Irish Americans funding terrorists is understandable. To use the bombing of a sporting event which resulted in the deaths of three people and the severe injury of scores of others as an opportunity to say “Serves you right, now you know what it’s like” is not the response of an adult.

From the USA there was an even worse response. The progressive Salon website published a heartfelt plea that the bomber would be a white American male. This is not because David Serota the author of the article thought, in good progressive fashion, that there should be a racial quota for bombers. Rather he thought that this might prevent a backlash against Muslims in the USA. He was probably recalling the massive violent backlash against Muslims following 9/11.

Oh, we remember now, there was no massive violent backlash against Muslims. Instead there were a few instances of name calling and even one or two assaults, but the great mass of the USA’s 300,000,000 citizens reacted in a remarkably mature fashion. They realised that practically all of the USA’s Muslim population were just as horrified as their fellow citizens.

It is a natural reaction to be protective of groups with which one has an intimate connection. Before it became clear that it was another jihadist atrocity most white Christian Americans no doubt hoped that it wasn’t, as the media widely hinted, a white Christian American who planted the bombs. Equally it is beyond doubt that the vast majority of America’s Muslims hoped that the terrorists would not be their co-religionists.

Why should Serota write such a repugnant article? He hoped that it would be a white American terrorist as that would fit in with his progressive view of society. If it were a white Christian American no doubt that would be even better. If it were a white Christian American who was an adherent of the Tea Party his cup would be full and overflowing.

When it is acceptable to write an article openly stating that you hope that an appalling atrocity was committed by people with whom you disagree politically you have departed from rational discourse. If a white supremacist had stated that he had hoped that the Sandy Hook killer had been a black gang member he would be called out for racist hate speech, and rightly so. If a Christian had stated that he had hoped that the Breivik atrocity had been committed by jihadists he would be called out for Islamophobic hate speech, and rightly so.

Serota revealed that he did not really care about the horror. What he really cared about was any political advantage which could be gained from the horror. It is possible for progressives to be guilty of racist hate speech.

DIVISIVE FIGURES

Her detractors trumpet it, her defenders shamefacedly admit it, Margaret Thatcher was a divisive figure. What few are willing to acknowledge is that being divisive is not always wrong. It all depends what we are being divisive about. Any person, in any walk of life, who attempts to challenge the status quo will be divisive.

Margaret Thatcher was certainly divisive. She took on the deep seated conservatism of the trades union movement and Labour Party who wanted everything to remain the same and the equally conservative establishment elites in her own party who thought they were born to rule. Finally, having defeated the Left it was the wets in her own party who vanquished her.

There have been few figures in British political history more divisive than Winston Churchill. Considered by many to be Britain’s finest prime minister he aroused, and still arouses fierce passion. There are still people who spit at his name because of his orders to send troops into Tonypandy to quell rioting miners more than a century ago. Even during WWII he had to face a Commons motion of no-confidence.

Sometimes he was wrong, sometimes he was right. On India, Gallipoli, the abdication crisis, and the economy Churchill was wrong, on the threat of German re-armament in the 30′s he was right. There were those, the bulk of the establishment and the majority of the British people, who wanted to appease Hitler, pretend nothing was too seriously wrong and keep everything calm, people who thought Churchill a dangerously divisive figure. Churchill was right to be divisive.

Ghandi, that “half naked fakir” as Churchill nearly described him was a divisive figure, and not just in the minds of the British. Ghandi aroused fierce passions amongst those Indians who did not wish to follow his lead. Eventually he aroused such hatred he was murdered by a fellow Indian.

Although lauded today Emmeline Pankhust was one of the most divisive figures in British social history. She was considered a dangerous radical by the establishment and also divided the woman’s suffrage movement. Millicent Fawcett declared that Pankhurst and the militant activists following her were “the chief obstacles in the way of success of the suffrage movement in the House of Commons.”

Lincoln, the first Republican president of the USA was such a divisive figure that between his election and inauguration seven Democratic controlled slave holding states actually left the Union. Lincoln was so divisive that his election precipitated a civil war. Few today would argue that Lincoln was not the USA’s greatest president.

William Wilberforce was a divisive figure. He took on in full frontal confrontation the power of empire, the political establishment, big business, any who supported slavery. In doing so he was anathematised and considered a dangerously divisive element, and he was in the right.

In the Church we honour divisive figures. Spurgeon was divisive. Although they never left the Anglican church the Wesley brothers were divisive, they provoked extreme reactions especially amongst the establishment. The Covenanters were despised and divisive and were hunted down for it, and yet without them and those like them we would never, as Carlyle reminds us, have had the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Luther, Calvin and the other Reformers brought about a split in the monolithic church which dominated Europe. The Reformers were divisive, thank God.

For Protestants the archetypical Roman Catholic bogey man is Ignatius Loyola with his Jesuits. They have also been seen as divisive and distrusted figures within the Roman Catholic church. It took nearly 500 years for a Jesuit, who form the largest order in the church, to become pope.

Francis of Assisi, everyone’s favourite eco-warrior, was divisive, and was fortunate in that the pope of the day eventually listened to him and did not just silence him out of hand.

The great theologian Athanasius, considered as one of the Fathers of the Church, was so divisive that he gave birth to the cry, “Athanasius contra mundum”. You can’t get much more divisive than that, and yet he managed to save the Church from Arianism.

We find divisive figures striding through the pages of Scripture. All the Old Testament prophets were divisive figures, and often paid for it being ignored, rejected, imprisoned and murdered. The greatest prophet of them all John the Baptist was such a divisive figure that he got his head in his hands to play with.

That divisive figure Paul withstood Peter to his face and forced a split with those Judaisers whom he thought shouldn’t stop short of circumcision but go the whole hog. The Greeks of Ephesus, as elsewhere, also thought that Paul such a divisive figure they tried to have him stoned. Eventually the Romans probably had him beheaded. Rather divisive.

John, the apostle of love, reminds us again and again that Christians will be hated in this world. The only way to stop that divisiveness is to stop being openly Christian, something John does not advise.

There is no more divisive figure, then and now, than our Lord Himself. He aroused passionate hatred, was rejected, anathematised and eventually judicially murdered.

We owe much to divisive figures, without divisive figures there would be no progress in any field. All too often consensual politicians in church and state give the impression that they want to steer a middle way between what they see as the two radical extremes of right and wrong.

There are times when we need unifying figures, and times when we need divisive figures. We should not fear division, as being divisive is not of itself wrong. Clarity about anything gives rise to division, it’s inevitable. What matters is whether or not we are in the right.